onomatopoeia

onomatopoeia

(ŏn'əmăt'əpē`ə) [Gr.,=word-making], in language, the representation of a sound by an imitation thereof; e.g., the cat mews. Poets often convey the meaning of a verse through its very sound. For example, in "Song of the Lotus-Eaters" Tennyson indicates the slow, sensuous, and langorous life of the Lotus-Eaters by the sound of the words he uses to describe the land in which they live:

Here are cool mosses deep, And through the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

Onomatopoeia can also represent harsh and unpleasant sounds, as in Browning's "Meeting at Night":

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match.

Onomatopoeia

(pop culture)

The black trench coat–wearing assassin Onomatopoeia hurled onto the pages of a Kevin Smith–penned, Phil Hester and Ande Parks–illustrated story in Green Arrow vol. 3 #11 (2002). Introduced as a ninja-like murderer of third-string superheroes such as the suburban vigilante Buckeye, Onomatopoeia struck a more well-known superhero, the contemporary Green Arrow, Connor Hawke—an accomplished martial artist himself and son of the original Green Arrow, Oliver Queen. Like his name implies, Onomatopoeia's calling card is that he utters onomatopoeic words—specifically, the sound of the murder weapon he employs during the murder (“Bang!” “Crash!”)—just before killing his next victim. While he didn't quite execute Green Arrow, he did manage to hospitalize him by shooting him in the head. As Green Arrow's arch-nemesis—and by extension, his father's, as the two Emerald Archers fight crime together in Star City—little is known about this evasive, verbally limited supervillain. His face concealed behind a black mask with concentric bull's-eye markings, Onomatopoeia has superpowers that mimic a super–serial killer. He is adept at using guns, swords, knives, and other weaponry, and even goes to such extremes as to bite weapons in two! With behavior that borders on psychotic, the mysterious Onomatopoeia might find a welcome home in the bleaker post–Infinite Crisis (2005–2006) DC Universe.

Onomatopoeia

in linguistics, sound-imitative words that develop out of a phonetic similarity to combinations of nonverbal sounds—for example, Russian miaukat’, “to meow” (from miau, “meow”). The term “onomatopoeia” also refers to the method by which sound-imitative words are formed, as well as to a particular type of onomatopoeic, or reduplicative, word. Often, “onomatopoeia” designates the conventional verbal imitation of the sound associated with a living or nonliving thing (ku-ku, “cuckoo”; bum-bum, “boom-boom”; a devitsa—khi-khi-khi! da kha-kha-kha! “And the girl goes ‘Hee, hee, hee!’ and ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ “). Onomatopoeia is used in poetry to create an image based on sound:

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